If I Had a Puppy

by Kacsir, Marci Adair

This manuscript is focused on poetry that combines the musicality of language with a limited space specifically so that the attention to language is heightened. I hope to get the readers involved in the poems through this kind of hyper-awareness and, at times, direct address. Directly speaking to my audience allows me to involve the readers in contemporary conversations in a way that less direct approaches often do not. Also, smaller, compressed forms offer a dimension of pressure on the line, call attention to the music in the language, and lend themselves to social commentary in a way I find particularly interesting. These poems are also influenced by the lyric tradition, especially the colloquial quality in the ballads. I see brevity not as a challenge but as an opportunity to leave something lingering with the audience long after the poem as been read.